There are four of us taking a shower today. The water is warmer and lasts longer because we are on earlier than newbies like me last week. And because we've done our norm.

After breakfast it's back to the rattle-shop - paper sacks, bakelite, bolts, screws and nuts all Saturday.

What I want to do in the West, Jürgen tries to tear me away from the past and to dare to look ahead.

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My future on the other side – within the “rotting, dying imperialism”, as hardliners like to describe capitalism with contempt when it comes to class struggle in class.

I want to be a farmer in Canada. That's why I came to Greifswald. As far away from "home" as possible.

And in the hope that my agricultural training will come in handy. In my wildest dreams I see myself running my own company. Something with computers.

One of my neighbours in the apartment block in my hometown actually has a primitive PIKO DAT that I was allowed to tinker with.

Some nerd is said to have used it to automate the signal box of a model railroad. That's why, at the first opportunity, I'm going to learn business computing so that I can play in the free world.

That sounds like a good plan, nods Jürgen. And it should be more lucrative than his self-employed career in the East.

While we learned at school how unfair it was that peasants had to pay tithes in the Middle Ages, he has to bake a hell of a lot of rolls to keep a tenth of his work.

His misfortune is my fortune. If he hadn't had the tax audit up his ass, we would never have met.

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